Biharmonic maps into symmetric spaces and integrable systems

Abstract

In this paper, the description of biharmonic map equation in terms of the Maurer-Cartan form for all smooth map of a compact Riemannian manifold into a Riemannian symmetric space $(G/K,h)$ induced from the bi-invariant Riemannian metric $h$ on $G$ is obtained. By this formula, all biharmonic curves into symmetric spaces are determined, and all the biharmonic maps of an open domain of ${\Bbb R}^2$ with the standard Riemannian metric into $(G/K,h)$ are determined.